Venice, 1647. Laura Malipiero has survived a husband's fists, a marriage unmade, a midnight escape through a window, and one trial before the Holy Office already. Now she has rooms of her own, tenants who pay her rent, women who seek her after dark, and a name that belongs to no man. Then the questions begin again.

Her grateful clients become witnesses. Two friars and a priest are swept into the net. And standing accused beside her is the woman who taught her everything: her mother, Isabella. Laura fights back with physicians' certificates, payments no one will name, and a lawyer's defence written in words she cannot read and cannot be sure are her own. The sentence falls like a blade. Ten years, and the threat of the lash through the streets of Castello.

On her knees, Laura swears to stop. For a time, she does. Then the son she became a healer to save dies far away, and she must hear it from another's lips because she cannot read the letter. Her daughter slips beyond her reach. And a priest comes to her door on behalf of a senator. Angelo Emo's wife has been wasting for three long years, and the finest physicians in Venice have failed her. The convicted healer is the city's last hope. It is the greatest triumph of Laura's life, and the most dangerous. Because Marina Contarini's illness may not be natural, and the only one who can see the truth is a frightened, pregnant servant girl with soot and almond oil darkening her palm.

What Girolama sees will make Laura certain. What Girolama confesses will bring the Holy Office to her door, where they find the forbidden books of King Solomon in the house of a woman who cannot read a word.

Prison breaks her body. It cannot break her will. And when the officers come one final time, pounding on her door in the cold winter dark, Laura Malipiero does what she has always done. She looks for another way out.

Based on the extraordinary true story of a Venetian healer accused of witchcraft, A Venetian Confession is the gripping conclusion of The Healer of Venice duology.